Home Is Where The Heart Is

Yup, that's me as Santa... and yes, that is padding! Just in case you're wondering.

There’s something about visiting one’s parents that always makes us feel at home. Even when we’re long gone, with homes, lives, and families of our own, nothing quite compares to the feeling of showing up at your parents casa and feeling the familiarity of home.

It doesn’t even matter that the house they’re living in now isn’t the one you grew up in, or in my case, the half dozen we lived in growing up. There are still the familiar little things everywhere that remind us of years gone by… far too many of if you ask me. Anca mis papas it’s the pictures on the wall, the ones where we were all thinner, younger, with less wear and tear, bad clothes, hair, and all; the costuras on this table or that one, the ones my mother or one of her sisters embroidered; the vitrina chocked full of papers and random mementos, from the decorative plate that I gave to my mom one year for Mother’s Day, and which is now broken, but she refuses to throw away, to important letters and documents that she’s holding on to for one of us to look over when we come by, everything but the fancy china that’s supposed to go in there; to the smell of her towels in the restroom; and of course all of the food.

Dios mío, all of the delicious food!

Nobody walks into my mother’s home and walks out hungry. If you do that’s only because you want too.

It doesn’t matter how much we might have just eaten. When we walk in the door the immediate second question after ¿como les ha ido? is always ¿tienen hambre? ¿Quieren comer?Aunque no tenga hambre I never say no. Instead I’ll nod or just walk straight into the kitchen to look under every lid to see what’s in each pot. On some level, literally going through my own little treasure hunt. Nothing beats finding chile con queso or homemade fried chicken, still my all time favorites.

The only thing that can make these visits even better is having the rest of my siblings there too. Every time we get together it’s like time has just resumed, and while we’re all un poquito diferentes now, maybe a little more grown up… or out, however, you choose to look at it (no offense intended, lol), we pick up just where we left off the last time, right where we started out to begin with, en la casa de mis padres.

Another great blog. Coming home for me also means my mom calling me mija (rarely using my name) I don’t think anyone outside a hispanic culture can understand that this endearment means more than just daughter (or son mijo) and how sweet it is to the ear.